


Of Hurts and Healing Hands

by SabbyStarlight



Series: Cairo Week 2020! [4]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: And Jack's a good Dad, Cairo Week 2020, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, That's it, Whump, everyone gets hurt, that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23669038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SabbyStarlight/pseuds/SabbyStarlight
Summary: Day Three: "This is gonna hurt"Four times Jack had to say those words to one of his kids and one time he had to say them to himself.
Series: Cairo Week 2020! [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701235
Comments: 21
Kudos: 58





	Of Hurts and Healing Hands

_**1\. Riley** _

"Des, go with Mac," Jack nodded towards the door of the little cabin they had stumbled into. "Ri and I will catch up. I wanna do a final sweep of this place, make sure we got them all, gotta split up the firepower."

Mac sent him a look, one eyebrow raised in question, but kept his mouth shut. Jack was notorious for being opposed to splitting up on missions, even when it was necessary, so he had to have a good reason if he was the one suggesting it.

"Go on," Jack insisted, sensing Mac's uncertainty. "We'll be right behind you."

"Let's go, Mac," Desi nudged him towards the door, backing Jack's play automatically.

He waited until they were alone before turning to Riley, who was trying to lean against the rickety kitchen table without it being too obvious. "How'd you know?"

"That you're hurt? The better question is why'd you think you could hide it from me?" Jack crossed his arms, looking her over for any trace of blood or visible injury.

"No big deal," She shrugged. "Slid down that hill back there, thought I might have rolled my ankle. Walking it off didn't help. Starting to think it may be a little worse than I first thought."

"Well sit down then," Jack waved at the perfectly good chairs she was ignoring. "Get off it. You think it’s broke?"

"I don't think so?" The words were more of a question themselves than they were an answer. With a wince, Riley gave in and pulled one of the chairs out to drop into. "Hope it's just sprained, we've got a long hike back to exfil."

"Yeah, well don’t get your hopes up. If it's bad enough you're willing to tell me you’re hurt I wouldn't bet on this workin’ out in our favor."

"I didn't tell you though," She smiled. "You just knew. I really did think I could walk it off."

"Cause walking off a broken ankle is such a great idea," Jack huffed crossing the short distance between them and dropping to a knee in front of her. "Can I take this boot off?"

She nodded.

Jack loosened the laces as far as he could and then carefully tugged it and her sock off in one move, whistling under his breath when he got his first look. "Nice bruises you've got goin', that's for sure. Any numbness anywhere?"

"No, I definitely feel it," She admitted, leaning forward and looking for herself. "But it isn't that bad if I stay off of it. Hardly feel it since I sat down. Maybe it really is just sprained?"

Jack lightly wrapped his hands around her ankle. "Alright, this is gonna hurt, but, try to move it for me, see how that goes."

She slowly rotated her foot in his grasp and Jack ignored the hitch in her breath from the pain moving caused, focusing on feeling any unnatural shifting beneath her skin. “Clearly it don’t feel great, but you can move it, so it probably ain't broken." He decided, pulling her sock back on. "Not going to be fun to walk on, but we need to get caught up to Desi and Mac. You gonna let me help you outta here?"

"Are you giving me a choice?" She teased.

"Not really, no," Jack laughed as he slid her boot back into place and began to gently retie the laces. "Every instinct I've got is screamin' at me to just carry you but I'm willing to push that aside and play the part of a crutch till we make it to exfil if that's how you would rather this go down."

"Yeah, okay," She nodded, accepting Jack's hand when he held it out to help her stand. "That sounds fair. Thanks."

"As long," He warned. "As you don't try to hide something like this from me again."

"I'll think about it," She promised as they began to limp their way out of the little cabin.

_**2\. Bozer** _

"Ow, ow, ow, ow," Bozer bounced on the balls of his feet, dropping the heavy wooden crate he had been loading onto the conveyor belt to the ground and clutching the fingers of his right hand gripped in his left, holding it tightly to his chest.

"What happened?" Jack set down the crate in his own arms and walked over to the younger man.

"Finger, hurts, ow, dammit!"

"Alright, alright," Jack dropped a resisting hand on his shoulder. "Stop jumpin' around and let me see whatcha did to it.”

"Nope," Bozer's eyes widened and he took a step away from Jack. "No. I'm fine. Um, forget I mentioned it."

"Boze." Jack stepped closer again, rolling his eyes. "C'mon, let me see."

"No way," He shook his head fast enough Jack began to worry about adding whiplash to the list of injuries. "I know how this ends."

Jack frowned. "With me seein' the damage and fixin' it?"

"Yeah, sure, what you call fixing? I call making it hurt worse. Don't touch me."

"Okay, okay," Jack held up his hands in surrender, placating, and took a step back. "Sorry. Can I at least take a look? No point in gettin' all worked up about it if there's nothin' I can do."

"I've seen this movie," Bozer protested, eyes wary, guarded. "You say you're just going to look, next thing I know I'm howling in pain on the ground and you're offering some half-assed apology claiming that it hurts less if I'm not expecting it."

"I mean, it does," Jack shrugged. "In my experience. But, hey," He risked placing his hand back on Bozer's shoulder. "I won't do that to you, alright? Promise. Don't even know what we're dealin' with yet. If I say I'm just looking at it that's all I'm gonna do."

"Yeah," Bozer nodded slowly, staring at a spot in the distance just past Jack's shoulder. "Yeah, okay." He slowly reached out his shaking hand, trusting.

"If I do anything, anything at all, that makes it worse you just say the word and I'll stop," Jack promised, waiting on the younger man to meet his eyes and nod in agreement before touching the offered hand. Jack winced in sympathy once Bozer's hand was resting gently between both of his own and he got a good look at the problem. "Ouch." His index finger was bent at an obviously unnatural angle. "Pretty sure it's not supposed to bend like that."

"Got caught in the belt." Bozer nodded to the machinery behind him. "You think it's broken?"

"Maybe," Jack turned the hand over, examining both sides. "But if you didn't smash it most likely it just popped it out at the joint there. Can you make a fist for me?"

Bozer curled his fingers in towards Jack's thumb, managing to wrap them all around tightly except for the injured one. "Yeah, that's not happening," he winced.

"Okay," Jack nodded, having expected as much. "Hang tight, let me get this all packed up and we'll head in, make a pit stop at Medical, let them get you patched up."

"We can't just leave," Bozer looked around at the unfinished project. "This isn't finished. We're on the clock here, Matty needed this done. Can you..." he frowned, clearly not thrilled about the idea. "Can't you just fix it here?"

"I can put it back in for you," Jack agreed, "But it ain't gonna be fun. Think we better just call this one and let the pros take care of it."

"No," Bozer shook his head. "That's not what you would do. Or Mac. You'd just fix it and keep going. Right?"

"Yeah, probably," Jack admitted with a sigh. "But we've been dealin' with this kinda stuff for a lot longer than you, kiddo. Pushin' through, working through the pain, that's not something that comes natural."

"Then I've got to learn sometime," Bozer decided. "Might as well be today.

"You're sure?"

"Nope. But I'm going to let you do it anyway." He forced a smile. "I trust you."

Jack's smile was far from forced, touched by the words more than he would ever let show, but he hated the far from ideal situation they were born from. "This is gonna hurt," He warned. "You know that, right?"

"I know." Bozer nodded. "It's okay. Like I said, I trust you. Just, let me know before you do it, alright? I really do hate that surprise thing."

"I won't do that to ya," Jack promised again. "You ready to get it over with?"

"Just like ripping off a band-aid, right?"

"Uh, yeah, sure." It was an analogy Jack himself probably would have chosen and it made him smile. "Take a couple of good, deep breaths for me, okay?" He waited until Bozer followed those instructions before continuing. "Hey now, eyes up here. Don't watch what I'm doing. Watching always makes it hurt worse, you remember that."

Another nod.

"I want you to take another breath, nice and slow. And then we're gonna go for it."

Bozer did just that and before he had a chance to exhale Jack had twisted his finger back into place with a pop.

"Sorry," Jack dropped Bozer's hands instantly, taking a step back and giving the younger man his space. "One hell of a band-aid, huh?"

"Yeah, yeah it was." Bozer huffed a laugh, offering Jack a weak smile that eased some of the guilt squeezing at Jack's heart.

"Alright, you take it easy, let me get finished up here and we'll find somethin' to splint that up with."

"I can help," Bozer offered but Jack protested, shaking his head.

"Nope, you sit yourself down and don't move that hand," He pointed to the pile of crates that were left to be loaded and waited until Bozer had sat down on one of them before he restarted the process of loading them onto the conveyer belt. Jack noticed a shipping sticker on the next box he picked up and grinned, turning away from Bozer so he couldn't see him carefully peel it off. On his next trip back to the pile of boxes he paused just long enough to restick it to Bozer's shirt.

"What is that?" Bozer asked, frowning down at the black and white block letters and two oddly formed hands.

"Handle with care," Jack shrugged. "It seemed appropriate, give the circumstances. And hey man, you totally earned a sticker after that."

_**3\. Desi** _

Jack always makes sure he’s the last one to head home once a mission is over. Call him overprotective, but it’s his job to keep his team safe and he takes that job seriously. It didn’t end just because their plane touched down, sometimes it wasn’t even over when they were done with debrief and they went home. But the current mission they were coming off of had been a simple one, not even lasting two days, so he had lagged around until everyone else had left before heading out himself.

Desi’s car was still in the parking garage.

He frowned, instincts kicking up a gear. Something was wrong. She had been the first one to leave the War Room and somehow had managed to be the last to leave the  
building.

He strolled right past his own car, stuffing his keys back into his jacket pocket and lightly knocked on the passenger side window of Desi’s sedan, frowning when he saw her, barely more than a silhouette visible through the tinted glass but recognizable just the same, jump at the sound. The uncharacteristic move from her was the final straw. He pulled the door open and sat down beside her before she had time to process what was happening.

“Where and how bad?” He crossed his arms, reminding himself that it was Desi he was dealing with and she wasn’t a fan of his tactile mannerisms on a good day, let alone when she was hurt.

“The hell, Dalton?” She turned her head towards him, hair rustling against the headrest, and sighed when she saw the determination on his face, knowing she had been made. “How’d you know?”

“That’s not an answer. Let’s try this again, where and how bad?”

“Took a couple rounds to my vest,” She admitted, knowing better than to expect Jack to give up. “No big deal.”

"And how'd I miss that?" Jack frowned, replaying the mission over in his head, trying to place a time when Desi had been out of his sight and under fire.

"You were focusing on Mac and Riley," Desi shrugged. "Like you were supposed to. You didn't see it because I didn't want you to."

"Well, there goes me thinkin' I can trust you to tell me when something's wrong instead of trying to hide it from me. What is it with you kids, huh? Every last one of you. Thought you at least were smarter than to try and pull that."

“It’s no big deal, Jack.”

“That’d be a lot more reassuring coming from someone who knows what they’re talking about and has the M.D. beside their name to prove it.”

“You’re gonna make me go get checked out, aren’t you?” She huffed, already knowing the answer.

"Yup, I am." Jack agreed. “Sorry, kiddo. You’re feelin’ bad enough to take a break and hang out here instead of hightailin’ it home. That means you earned a trip to Medical.”

“Yeah, alright,” She conceded. “Should’ve gone there first, now I have to climb back out of this damn car.”

“Hang tight,” Jack smiled, hand already on the door handle. “I’ll come give ya a hand.” He was lucky she trusted him enough to admit that she was hurt at all, let alone be willing to let him help her. Jack understood more than anyone the stress that came with not wanting to let the people you were charged with protecting see your weakness.

"Don't hit me, alright?" He teased, not entirely joking when he had her door open and was at her side.

"I'm not going to hit you, Dalton," She turned in her seat and rolled her eyes to distract from a wince. “Let’s get this over with.”

"You're sure you're not gonna hit me?" He continued, reaching out his hands. "This is gonna hurt."

"You think I don’t know that? It already hurts." She grabbed his hands with both of hers and used them as leverage to pull herself up, face twisting into a grimace as the movement pulled on bruised ribs.

“Easy,” Jack pitched his voice low, knowing he was walking a fine line between comforting and what she would consider condescending.

“I’m not staying,” She declared after taking a moment to catch her breath, dropping her grip on Jack’s hands and heading back towards the building entrance. “I’m getting checked out so you’ll shut up about it and then going home.”

“Alright,” Jack laughed, grabbing her keys out of the ignition and locking her car before sticking them into his pocket with his own. “I can probably back you up on that one. So long as it really is just some bruises.”

“What are you doing?” She turned to look at him with confusion as he fell into step beside her.

“What? You thought I wasn’t going to go with you?”

“I don’t need a babysitter.” She was defensive, quickly rebuilding her walls faster than Jack could knock them down.

“Nobody said you did,” Jack placated, holding up a hand and letting the distance between them grow, not crowding her. “But you’re a part of a team now. And one of the perks that come with that is having me being all annoying and overprotective when one of my… when someone on the team, gets hurt.” He quickly corrected himself and continued talking to cover up his fumble. “You’ll learn to love it, I promise. The rest of ‘em have.”

“Don’t count on it,” She warned, quickening her pace just enough to get a few steps ahead of him but wasn’t fast enough to keep him from seeing the smile breaking out as she realized that she didn’t have to check and see if he was still behind her, she trusted him to follow.

_**4\. Mac** _

"You wanna hold my hand?" Jack kept his tone teasing, light, but the offer was far from a joke.

"No. Shut up," Mac rolled eyes, shoulders set, defensive. His forced bravado was commendable, even though it was unnecessary, the only witnesses were Jack and the familiar team from Phoenix Med. "I'm fine. It's just a few stitches. Pretty sure I'll survive."

"Yeah, alright tough guy," Jack chuckled, staying close, just in case. "We'll see about that. They gotta get all that glass out of you before they start stitchin' you up. This is gonna hurt, you and me both know it."

"Who decided glass coffee tables were a good idea anyway?" Mac huffed as he remembered the moment his leg had crashed through, the sound of whatever shards of glass hadn't ended up embedded in his calf raining down onto the hardwood floor beneath.

"Now, I'm not one to place blame," Jack smiled "But I think the problem was more with the guy deciding to climb on the table, not the one who built it. Those things aren't meant to hold up a person, dude. And coming from someone who has carried you out of harms way more times than either one of us would like to admit? You're heavier than you look."

"You ready Mac?" Laurel asked.

A nod and Mac's eyes fell closed, jaw locking, confidence waning. Jack stepped even closer.

She began and his muscles tensed despite his best efforts to stay calm and relaxed. He knew it would only make the pain worse, would leave him sore once it's over but it was out of his control. A gasp escaped, against his will, as the first piece of glass was removed and a steady hand found it's way to his shoulder, grounding through the pain.

"You doin' alright?" Laurel glances up, eyes flicking to Mac's grimace and then up to Jack's, checking in with both of them.

Another tense nod.

"Okay," She didn’t believe him, not for a second, but kept going. "Fair warning though, this next one's going to be rough. It's deep."

It took everything Mac had, and some firm resistance from his partner's hand, to keep him from coming up off the exam table. "Ow, damn it," He panted, panicking, eyes blinking up at ceiling tiles, blurred by unwarranted tears. "Yeah, yeah, hand, gimmie your hand," He lifted his own of the exam table, uncurling the fist he hadn't known had even formed, and flapped it in the general direction of his partner, conceding. The need to find an anchor through the hurt was suddenly more important than his pride.

Jack supplied it willingly, wincing, in sympathy, not pain of his own. He didn't care about himself, not as long as his partner was hurting, as trembling fingers clenched around his own, but he swore he could hear the bones grinding, joints creaking from pressure. Blunt nails dug into his palm. "Easy," He soothed, knowing that the words themselves didn't matter, it was the tone, steady and familiar, that provided the comfort. "You're doin' great. Almost through the worst of it, just hang in there a little longer. Think you can do that for me?"

Mac nodded, just like Jack knew he would, brain hardwired to keep everyone else from worrying, desperate to please after years of abandonment and blaming himself for it.

The pain receded enough for it to be bearable once the largest piece of glass was removed, and Mac tried to let go of Jack's hand, to pry his stiff fingers away but Jack won't let him.

"Stay still," The hand that had been holding him down disappeared from his shoulder, sensing that the worst was over, and reached up to brush the sweaty strands of hair away that had plastered themselves to Mac's forehead. "You're fine right where you are. I gotcha. Just let me help."

"I'm okay," Mac insisted, though he didn't try to break free from Jack's grip on his hand again.

"Yeah, yeah, I know you are." Jack smiled down at him "But you know I hate seein' you like this. Hurts me way worse than it hurts you. So humor me, alright? Maybe this is purely for my benefit and I ain't doin' it to help you, not one bit." He teased. "Maybe I just selfishly needed you to hold my hand. You ever think of that?"

"No," Mac laughed, the sound almost drowning out the plink of another shard of glass dropping onto the metal tray beside him. "Can honestly say I hadn't."

"Gee," Jack shook his head in mock disappointment. "And they say you're the smart one here."

Mac was still smiling when Laurel finished pulling the last of the pieces of glass free. "Think that's all of them. Just gotta get him stitched up now, Jack. You can probably let go."

"Naw," Jack shook his head, tightening his grip once more. "I ain't goin' anywhere."

**_+1. Jack_ **

Getting separated on a mission was never ideal. When it happened now, though, Jack found himself infinitely grateful for Desi's presence as the newest member of their little family, meaning that Mac, Riley, and Bozer weren't left without any firepower when he wasn't able to have their backs.

His current predicament was the perfect example of that. The merc they were hunting had ended up hunting them, chasing them through the maze of hallways and floors of what had once been an office building before it had been abandoned decades before it became his not-so-top-secret hideout. He had a charming sense of humor though, Jack would give him that much credit, cracking a joke about Jack finding a new meaning for the term 'pinned down' as he used a heavy boot to keep Jack sitting up against the wall of what had probably been a board room at one point, dazed and briefly knocked off his game from one to many blows to the head, using his free hands to fire an arrow from the crossbow that had been slung over his shoulder. The bolt was a clean shot, not meant to kill but to hinder, driven clear through his shoulder, arrowhead lodging deep in the wooden paneling of the wall behind him, and he was stuck.

Jack tried not to panic. They still had the upper hand, even with him down, four to one. Those were good odds. And as much as he liked to tease them about their age, he knew his kids really were well-trained operatives who were capable of taking care of themselves. He was sitting there, pinned against the wall, trying to blink away the dizziness enough to be able to look down at his latest injury, telling himself that everything was going to be fine when his comm snapped back to life.

It had been damaged in one of the hits he had taken, a relief at the time, knowing that his kids wouldn't be distracted by listening to him hurting. Now he was desperate for a better connection, not the staticky crackle he was forced to listen as they attempted to make their escape. "...ack?" That was Mac's voice, worried and out of breath. "Don't know... need... are you?" The words were fading in and out but Jack understood enough to know that he was in trouble. There were other sounds too, that Jack could easily identify, controlled bursts from Desi's handgun that sounded as if she was already conserving ammo, Riley murmuring under her breath, something about heat signatures, probably trying to scan the huge building with thermal cameras. Bozer's squeak as something, an arrow, was Jack's educated guess, went whistling by a little too close for comfort.

No matter who's name he called, how loud he screamed for them, nobody seemed to hear him. The two-way connection must have been severed. They didn't know where he was and he couldn't help them, couldn't do his job and keep them safe, from his current position. Which left one option: He had to get to them.

He couldn't pull the arrow out, that was basic, rudimentary first aid. The damage of the arrowhead backtracking through the wound path would cause him to bleed out long before he had a chance to help his kids but was faced with the same problem if he snapped off the end he could see and pulled away from the wall, leaving the arrow behind and a gaping hole in his shoulder. Those were the only obvious plans, and neither of them would work, but maybe if he used ideas from both...  
"Well, this is gonna hurt," Jack mumbled to himself. He wasn't sure why he took the care to keep his voice low since nobody could hear him, instinct, he supposed, years of pushing his own pain to the back burner and not wanting his kids to have to worry about him.

Slowly, so he didn't go too far and do any more damage than he had to, he began to lean forward, pulling his impaled arm forward on the bolt and ignoring the pain and squelching sound so close to his ear until the shiny metal fletching was pressed against the entrance of the wound. The new position meant he no longer had the luxury of being able to lean against the wall to catch his breath, so he panted through the agony, focusing on the thought of the kids who needed his help, and reached up with his uninjured arm. Scooting forward on the arrow had given him enough room to be able to fit a hand behind his shoulder. He got a grip on the bolt, warm and slick with his own blood, took a breath to steady himself, and snapped it in two with a scream.

He felt the jarring echo of pain all the way down to his toes but miraculously didn't black out, just curled forward, knees braced against his chest to keep himself from falling over, taking a few precious moments to remember how to breathe. His mind had prioritized, blocking out any sounds coming through over the damaged comm connection, but it came back online then, and this time it was Desi's voice, brokenly calling for backup, and his need to protect overrode the pain.

He braced his injured arm against his side as he stumbled to standing and crossed the room to test the doorknob. He laughed as it opened easily beneath his hand. It hadn't even been locked. Nobody would have guessed that he could have made it far enough to check and see, so there had been no point. An arrow pinning them to the wall would have been more than enough to stop most people, to make them give up, but most people weren't Jack Dalton.

The trail of blood he was leaving was irrelevant, as was the pain each jarring step sent radiating out from his shoulder. He had kids to save, and he would always come running whenever they called.


End file.
